Geek Intersect: Robert Maillet

A Geek Intersect is an entertainer - often an actor - who has portrayed more than one seminal role associated with genre television or movies. Someone who has come to MEAN something to fans of genre fiction, and consequently, whose every new appearance takes on a double meaning. To geeks, they've become a connection to important geekery real estate and immediately create a reference or allusion back into the Intersect of All Things Geek. And since it's Acadia's national holiday, I want to use this infrequent series to celebrate a boy from very near here, Bouctouche, less than an hour's drive away, and someone who, though he works on Hollywood productions, also has a much more personal connection, a mere Kevin Bacon away.

Robert Maillet: The Acadian Giant

When you're an inch from 7 feet and 350 lb of muscle, a career in pro wrestling seems a good gig, and Robert Maillet did spent a few seasons of the WWF as Kurrgan the Interrogator, but going into acting, you have a most definite casting. And it's a perfect casting for genre films that need heavies or physically odd people. Action, SF, horror... Robert Maillet seems to find his way into these kinds of pictures all the time.

The first time we realized we had a small-town Acadian boy in a big movie was 300, where he played the Uber Immortal. (Through some strange coincidence, one of my high school friends' boyfriend was also a visually important part of the Persian army.)

Then in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, he played Dredger, the goon from the shipyard, in a scene where he famously accidentally punched Robert Downey Jr. in the face. (He was reportedly ten times more upset about the incident than RDJ.)

His biggest, if not most prominent, role was as the Frankenstein Monster in the ridiculous Monster Brawl, a B-movie about a wrestling tournament in which eight classic monsters fight to the death.

In Immortals, he played the Minotaur. In Once Upon a Time, the Behemoth. In Pacific Rim, one of the Russian team of mech pilots. He's been an executioner in the latest Hercules film, Polyphemus in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, a character named Yeti in Brick Mansions, and held such roles as Bear Man #2, Giant Hobo and Barracuda Ben. He's even had recurring roles on series like Dark Rising: Warrior of Worlds, The Strain (where he is The Master) and Haven. Tons of genre stuff (in fact, very little you wouldn't COUNT as genre).

That more personal connection I was talking about? Well aside from seeing him here in movie theaters from time to time (in person, discreetly watching a movie, not necessarily on the screen), he was in a movie written and co-directed by a good friend (who you know as Lip-Bomb from Hot or Not). It starred a few people from our improv circle, one of whom, Fred, is from Bouctouche and new Robert Maillet enough to ask him to be a heavy in the short film (an interrogator, in fact, linking back to his wrestling career). He agreed and Fred got to be punched by him in the short. And guess what? It's a genre piece. It's called Prédestination, and as you can surmise, it's about time travel. Here it is in full:

It's in French, so if you can't decode it and/or just want a taste, here's the trailer:

No connection to Ethan Hawke's latterly movie of the same (English) title. It was made quite a few years before (in 2010). And didn't have Robert Maillet, my own little brush with Geek Intersection.